For the marching crowds, mobilization is far from over

Seven days after protesters first descended on the nation's capital for moments like this, the uprising of the angry, exhausted and fed up showed Thursday that it was far from finished. Protesters held a "die-in" at the White House and a march to Washington National Cathedral. They ignored warnings of incoming severe thunderstorms and accepted the risk of coronavirus infection in crowds. They carried hand sanitizer and tightly gripped the hands of their children. 

"People are listening," said Ciyanne Zewdie, an 18-year-old high school student returning to the protest for a second day. "It's like there's been a knife stabbed in our back. It's only been moved three millimeters. It's going to take a long time to be out all the way." 

The demonstrations have evolved drastically since Monday, when a peaceful assembly near the White House was disrupted by an aggressive law enforcement response, followed by more than 200 arrests and a significant amount of looting. On Thursday, the streets surrounding the White House were an orderly ecosystem with a predictable routine and a block-party atmosphere. 

Hundreds of protesters began to crowd peaceably by the high fences barring the way to Lafayette Square around 4 p.m. On cue, medics started setting up first-aid stations beneath trees and under the awnings of buildings, ready to receive patients in the relief-giving shade. Dozens of snack stations sprouted as the sun burned down on bare shoulders, some tables sheltered with tarpaulin tents, some stacked with voter registration forms, all offering water. A man unpacked a full drum set, blue and sparkling, and began playing for the assembled masses.

Along the street, someone had set out makeshift trash cans made from cardboard boxes and labeled "TRASH" and its Spanish equivalent, "BASURA," in black Sharpie.

For the first time since the protests began, Wednesday's demonstrations ended with no arrests and no police injuries or damage to police property, prompting District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, to eliminate the curfew Thursday. 

"Moving forward over the next couple of days, we expect more of the same," District Police Chief Peter Newsham said Thursday. 

While pleased with the continued peace, Bowser and Newsham expressed their opposition to the heavy presence of federal law enforcement around the city, blocking off huge swaths of downtown and access to many monuments. National Guard units from around the country have been deployed to the District, along with agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals Service and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Attorney General William Barr is orchestrating the federal law enforcement activity from a command center in Chinatown. 

"We want troops from out of state out of Washington, D.C.," Bowser said. "I'm also concerned that some of the hardening that they're doing may be not temporary."

 

On Wednesday, federal officials expanded the perimeter around the White House to include half a city block north of Lafayette Square. By Thursday, after demands from the mayor and city officials, they had retreated back to the square, behind the tall chain-link fence erected there this week. 

Within the park, small huddles of law enforcement personnel conferred in clumps but had not formed a line as 5 p.m. drew near. They stayed well back from the fencing, a marked contrast from the day before, when protesters had spent much of the day face-to-face with members of the National Guard equipped with shields and batons. 

Although the crowds that gathered Thursday were smaller than on most recent days, first-time protesters were still turning out. 

Jillian Ross, a 26-year-old Howard University medical student, well understood the risk of contracting coronavirus in a crowd. But she said she was also acutely aware that when her forebears stood up for their rights half a century ago they also faced immediate dangers: overtly racist elected officials, fire hoses and vicious dogs of the kind President Trump has so far only threatened to use. 

For that reason, Ross said, "it was an easy decision to come out here."

Tuesday Cook Headley, 43, a Maryland surgeon, brought her 7-year-old daughter with her to witness the protest and let her know that she needs to be a part of bringing about change in the country.

Cook Headley said her daughter had been stuck at home for nearly three months because of the pandemic.

"We've kept her safe, but this is injustice that calls us out. We want to stay in to stay safe, but we're not safe when innocent black men and women are murdered in the street or in their home," she said. "The anger and frustration of more than 400 years of injustice to black people in this country has become too much. It's been too much."

"And we're not standing for this anymore!" her daughter interjected.

"That's right!" her mother said with a laugh behind her mask.

 

Long days of repeated marches and chants seemed only to invigorate many demonstrators, who after months of virus-induced separation and isolation reveled in the chance to come together. Organizers were already spreading the word about multiple demonstrations planned for Saturday that are likely to attract visitors from beyond the District region. And during a memorial service Thursday for George Floyd, the Rev. Al Sharpton announced plans for an Aug. 28 demonstration in the nation's capital on the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington.

"That's where your father stood in the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial and said, 'I have a dream,' " Sharpton said, pointing to Martin Luther King III in the audience. "Well, we going back this August 28 to restore and recommit that dream to stand up, because just like in one era we had to fight slavery, another era we had to fight Jim Crow, another era we dealt with voting rights, this is the era to deal with policing and criminal justice. We need to go back to Washington and stand up - black, white, Latino, Arab - in the shadows of Lincoln and tell them, 'This is the time to stop this.' "

Though Floyd's name was the most-repeated each day, protesters such as Emma Mann hoped to educate those around her about all the others like him whose names never made the headlines or quickly disappeared from notice. 

On Thursday morning, the 34-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, had sat at her computer and begun to print pictures of black women killed by police. She'd intended to print only a few but grew overwhelmed as she worked - and the poster she held above her head Thursday was crammed with photos of 19 women, some of whose deaths garnered national attention, some whom very few mourned.

In the upper right corner were four pictures of Mann's cousin. Gynnya McMillen, 16, died in a juvenile detention facility in Kentucky.

"What happened to her?" asked a man walking by, pointing to a face in the middle of the poster.

"She was responding to a 911 call," Mann said, "and police thought she was the aggressor."

The man moved on, shaking his head, but Mann stayed. It was her first day out protesting in the District. She was prepared to stay all day.